Reload : rethinking violence in American life, Christopher B. Strain

Strain traces our modern-day conception of violence from the struggle to survive on the American frontier, through evolving gender roles in recent generations, to the hysteria surrounding video and role-playing games and the disturbing phenomenon of school shootings. The result is nothing less than a profound meditation on American violence and a primer on how to understand what can often appear to be an alarmingly dangerous nation. --Book Jacket

When incidents of extreme violence flare in America, all too often they are framed as isolated aberrations. Nothing could be further from the truth, Christopher Strain argues in Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life. The unpleasant fact, as this highly readable study shows, is that violence is inextricably woven into the fabric of our national heritage and experience. --

Strain traces our modern-day conception of violence from the struggle to survive on the American frontier, through evolving gender roles in recent generations, to the hysteria surrounding video and role-playing games and the disturbing phenomenon of school shootings. The result is nothing less than a profound meditation on American violence and a primer on how to understand what can often appear to be an alarmingly dangerous nation. --Book Jacket

When incidents of extreme violence flare in America, all too often they are framed as isolated aberrations. Nothing could be further from the truth, Christopher Strain argues in Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life. The unpleasant fact, as this highly readable study shows, is that violence is inextricably woven into the fabric of our national heritage and experience. --